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Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings are

Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings are in you.

Uke can resist but the resistance that nage feels is nage's feeling

That is exactly what I said.
I still stand by it. I meant no offense to any one.

I am talking about this in the context of Aikido training. I stayed in Aikido to learn how to respond differently to stressful situations.

An important lesson I learned in Aikido class was that if someone screamed at me it did not automatically mean that I was going to be hit. Without training I might never have learned that. It is an important lesson for me.

How we feel in each situation is unique to us. One person who is screamed at and hit might feel angry and combative. Another might feel useless and desperate.

How something feels physically is one thing...like if you grab nage's wrist tightly they could feel paralyzed. Another nage may start moving wildly, trying to escape. Nage might feel all of the power of the grab in the wrist and lose sight that they have a whole body they can move.

Now, about feelings that we feel inside or emotions might be a better word, so it is not so confusing with how it feels and how we are feeling.

Emotions that arise from that grab could be frustration, anger, sadness and hopelessness. Another person may experience exlaration, excitement, and adrenaline. Just examples, I know there is a huge array of responses based on who we are and what we have learned and how we respond to stress.

My purpose in the quoted test was not to disparage anyone's experience.

I was thinking about how a person responds to a situation at any given time. And how they might experience a similar situation after training.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

I am the culprit who derailed the thread with my glib attempt at humor. I was referring to Marine Corps Recruit Training when I mentioned "Boot Camp" - largely used to refer to basic training in the Naval services. The other branches of service refer to their initial entry training here as "Basic Training". Yes, I did experience it.

When Takahashi Sensei paraphrased the Roosevelt quote, I provided the correct quotation and noted in my own mind the difference between the terms "disrespect" and "inferior". I thought back to decades ago in San Diego and laughingly noted that Mrs. Roosevelt hadn't experienced Boot Camp.

That took us off on two tangents; Boot Camp, and admiration for Mrs. Roosevelt. Again, I commented that there were those who's admiration for her wasn't nearly as great as others. I can think of several groups besides racists and sexists who didn't hold her in the highest regard. Republicans, those opposed to the formation of the United Nations, and even a significant number of WW2 era Marines who were offended at her comments about the character and nature of Marines in general - that despite the fact that her son James was a highly respected Marine officer and commander of a Marine Raider Battalion.

With your consent, I will bow out and try to avoid derailing the train any further.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

I too experienced "boot camp", but in the U.S. Army, where admittedly it was not quite as harsh or demanding as those of the other Services.
I agree that Mrs. Roosevelt's alleged quotation does little or nothing for those who are exposed to extreme stress, duress and prejudice. I meant the example to be a starting point of taking command of one's situation, learn what is and isn't possible, and to have the courage and self esteem to accomplish real change and self expression.
Thank you Michael Hackett ,for clarifying your intentions, and I do agree that we need to listen more to one another, and to be open to other points of view, personal perspective and life experiences.
And thank you Mary Eastland, for dealing with the noise, the assumptions and the rhetoric. Your patience and persistence are truly appreciated.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Mary Eastland wrote:

Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings are in you.

Uke can resist but the resistance that nage feels is nage's feeling

That is exactly what I said.
I still stand by it. I meant no offense to any one.

Leaving aside the boot camp experiences, which I also went through, I agree with Mary for the most part.

Quote:

Mary Eastland wrote:

I was thinking about how a person responds to a situation at any given time. And how they might experience a similar situation after training.

I do think that circumstances and the context of the circumstances you are in can have you lose the moment. Way back when.... I went to my 20 year High School reunion...had a pretty good time and some fun....then next day when I woke up I was so down and upset....couldn't work it out right away. After some thought I realized that everyone had dropped back into their persona from the high school day.s....and for most it didn't work, but it included all of us. It is easy to slip back into habits and patterns if one recreates the environment. Once I understood I had a good laugh and when about the day.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Gary Welborn wrote:

Leaving aside the boot camp experiences, which I also went through, I agree with Mary for the most part.

I do think that circumstances and the context of the circumstances you are in can have you lose the moment. Way back when.... I went to my 20 year High School reunion...had a pretty good time and some fun....then next day when I woke up I was so down and upset....couldn't work it out right away. After some thought I realized that everyone had dropped back into their persona from the high school day.s....and for most it didn't work, but it included all of us. It is easy to slip back into habits and patterns if one recreates the environment. Once I understood I had a good laugh and when about the day.

as always
Gary.

We are creatures of habit and conditioning - those that wish to manipulate are very aware of this and will use it to their advantage - thoughts of Pavlov's dog just come to mind when I think about all this...

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Greg Steckel wrote:

We are creatures of habit and conditioning - those that wish to manipulate are very aware of this and will use it to their advantage - thoughts of Pavlov's dog just come to mind when I think about all this...

Greg

Greg
I think that the context, circumstances, environment can have a "mind of it's own"......in affect manipulates in and of itself......... and to no ones advantage......

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Sorry, just couldn't resist........

Mrs. Roosevelt stirred up a hornet's nest in the early days of the Second World War by making disparaging comments about the Marines. Whether her opinion changed or she was requested to temper her remarks, she was quoted in 1945 saying "The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!" I guess Mrs. Roosevelt and I have a shared experience after all.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Mary Eastland wrote:

I am talking about this in the context of Aikido training.

Don't you train to try to manipulate or controll uke pschologically?
Don't you train to try to manipulate or control tori psychologically?

Sure, what nage feels is nages feeling. And at first glance he alone is responsible for what he feels. But when there is someone who is competent in affecting the feelings of another persons this becomes really difficult.

The teachings about metsuke deal with this. On both sides: Where to look to not give the oppenent the possibility to affect one's feelings. Or how to look to affect the feelings of the opponent. (When you see Christian Tissier performing aikidō watch his face. He is such a kind person. Smiling all the time, very humble, nice, soft, and during seminars he cares about everyone on the tatami ... When he performs, his face is like made of stone. His eyes are as if they would cut you ... This he does on purpose.)

There are movements to affect the opponent. Watanabe sensei does this as far as I understand it. I myself experienced this with Ikeda Hiroshi sensei.

Same with bootcamps: In the German army I experienced only a very little brother of what a befriended marine told me about what he survived during his drill. But even this was designed to affect our feelings, our personality, our "inside". When I talked to my company commander later it was their intention to break the personality we brought to the army and to build up real soldier from the pieces. Those where his words.
Having not one private second over a long time. Having only very short periods of sleep for a long time. Persons who only shout when they talk to you. ... Sure, your feelings are in you ...

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Hi Carsten:

I train to let uke...not to control uke. I have no interest in manipulation.

I think we approach the art in different ways.

Taking responsibility for our feelings gives us the option of changing how we react. It is a process that needs lots of Patience and courage. It is so much easier to blame others for our reactions yet we are the ones that have them.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Mary Eastland wrote:

Taking responsibility for our feelings gives us the option of changing how we react. It is a process that needs lots of Patience and courage. It is so much easier to blame others for our reactions yet we are the ones that have them.

If you're carrying a cake, and someone trips and shoves you, and the cake ends up on the floor, are you responsible for the fact that the cake is on the floor? You are the one who had it, after all...

Yeah, I understand there's a difference. What I want you to do is bring a finer focus to what you're saying. What exactly do you mean by "taking responsibility for our feelings"? What does that mean in a real situation, not in the abstract -- a real situation where a person is having bad feelings?

For what it's worth, I believe that we have more control over how we feel than most people realize, and I recognize that we humans tend to fuel our own negative emotions. At the same time, I think it's disingenuous to pretend that there's never any outside agency, and platitudinous to imply that this control can be perfect and absolute. If a child is being harassed and bullied by other children, or a worker is being berated and threatened by a boss, or a person has just gotten a diagnosis of cancer, feelings of fear or anger or distress are neither inappropriate nor self-generated.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Mary Eastland wrote:

Hi Carsten:

I train to let uke...not to control uke. I have no interest in manipulation.

I think we approach the art in different ways.

Taking responsibility for our feelings gives us the option of changing how we react. It is a process that needs lots of Patience and courage. It is so much easier to blame others for our reactions yet we are the ones that have them.

I'm curious about this statement. I can understand it in terms of non resistance and allowing the attack to dissipate but I am having a hard time with the notion control in regard to pins and to a lesser degree locks. Pins are controlling and locks do control but ideally the uke puts them on themselves. If you do not participate in those things they don't manifest. A uke won't be pinned if you aren't there. Your structure controls his.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Mary Malmros wrote:

If you're carrying a cake, and someone trips and shoves you, and the cake ends up on the floor, are you responsible for the fact that the cake is on the floor? You are the one who had it, after all...

Yeah, I understand there's a difference. What I want you to do is bring a finer focus to what you're saying. What exactly do you mean by "taking responsibility for our feelings"? What does that mean in a real situation, not in the abstract -- a real situation where a person is having bad feelings?

For what it's worth, I believe that we have more control over how we feel than most people realize, and I recognize that we humans tend to fuel our own negative emotions. At the same time, I think it's disingenuous to pretend that there's never any outside agency, and platitudinous to imply that this control can be perfect and absolute. If a child is being harassed and bullied by other children, or a worker is being berated and threatened by a boss, or a person has just gotten a diagnosis of cancer, feelings of fear or anger or distress are neither inappropriate nor self-generated.

HI Mary:

Thank you for your response.

To me there is a difference between blame and responsibility. Let's take the cake example. If someone trips me and I drop the cake. It could their fault or my fault. It would depend on the situation.

However, if it my daughter's birthday and I am responsible for the cake, I would most likely spend very little time deciding whose fault it is and just go get another cake because the cake is my responsibility.

Please don't think I make light of this. You can see in my last post that I wrote about the process. It is a very hard process. I spent much time blaming others or circumstances for the hard things that happened in my life. It really got me no where. Now I look to what or where I can change and move on. I usually don't love having to change. My motivation is not altruistic...it works for me and that is why I do it.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Mary Eastland wrote:

HI Mary:
To me there is a difference between blame and responsibility. Let's take the cake example. If someone trips me and I drop the cake. It could their fault or my fault. It would depend on the situation.

However, if it my daughter's birthday and I am responsible for the cake, I would most likely spend very little time deciding whose fault it is and just go get another cake because the cake is my responsibility.

How far will you take this? For example, how about people with PTSD (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...tress_disorder)? Would you argue that ultimately is their responsibility and it is up to them, to get their act together and get on with their lives? If not, why?

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

I'll chip in...

I believe in personal responsibility. That is, the responsibility we assume in making our daily choices, the benefits we derive from our choices and the consequences of those choices. I am responsible for making the choice to eat a piece of cake (chocolate, of course), the tasty experience my body enjoys from the cake and the extra weight the cake adds to my body. It is permissible to kill anyone who ruins good cake.

However, personal responsible is a sliding scale. A child has less personal responsibility than an adult. The infirm have less personal responsibility than the firm. Legally, we even allow for persons to designate those more able to make better choices than themselves. A soldier with PTSD, for example, has diminished personal responsibility. Is that soldier responsible for herself? Yes. Is she less capable of making decisions then when she was well? That's the argument. Is she expected to resume a "well" life under her own decisions? Arguably no; that is why people diagnosed with PTSD are ushered into programs where others may help them. This is also true of alcoholics, drug-abusers, and other illnesses. The common thread with many help programs is that they do encourage some amount of personal responsibility

In this I believe aikido is about learning our personal responsibilities and living with the intention of accepting our decisions, the benefits and the consequences. I am not sure why it becomes an issue when we acknowledge some of us need more help than others. For example, if I told you that I could not dunk a basketball, most people would concede that is beyond my skill. However, if I do not carry a high grade-point average, then I must be dumb. Why not simply "beyond my skill"?

I do not mean to make light of serious illness that diminishes our ability to control our bodies. I wish to simply point out that we all experience diminishing control of our bodies on a scale. Whether it is MS or old-age, an old injury or presbyopia, we are constantly battling how much control and responsibility we can assume over our bodies.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Mary Eastland wrote:

To me there is a difference between blame and responsibility. Let's take the cake example. If someone trips me and I drop the cake. It could their fault or my fault. It would depend on the situation.

However, if it my daughter's birthday and I am responsible for the cake, I would most likely spend very little time deciding whose fault it is and just go get another cake because the cake is my responsibility.

I like this -- both the distinction you make between blame and responsibility, which are so often conflated...and also, responsibility for having caused the situation vs. responsibility for fixing it. You are quite right -- our focus is so often who's to blame, and while I think that sometimes it does matter to establish who that is, it's often (mostly? nearly always?) a side discussion to the matter of sorting things out.

In terms of feelings, also, I think that blame is more likely to be a waste of time than in something tangible like the cake example, because your power to get the agent to try and make things better is less -- not to speak of their ability. If I knock someone's cake to the floor, I can usually do something about it -- if I do something that's emotionally hurtful, that's harder to fix.

Quote:

Mary Eastland wrote:

Please don't think I make light of this. You can see in my last post that I wrote about the process. It is a very hard process. I spent much time blaming others or circumstances for the hard things that happened in my life. It really got me no where. Now I look to what or where I can change and move on. I usually don't love having to change. My motivation is not altruistic...it works for me and that is why I do it.

I hear ya. I understand what you mean. I think for most of us, it's good medicine. Experience has also taught me that it's not a medicine that everyone is ready to take...and also, there are cases where it's not sufficient by itself. If someone is violent towards you, you have to take as much control over your own healing as is possible...but you do also have to deal with the violent intent.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Jon Reading wrote:

However, personal responsible is a sliding scale. A child has less personal responsibility than an adult. The infirm have less personal responsibility than the firm. Legally, we even allow for persons to designate those more able to make better choices than themselves. A soldier with PTSD, for example, has diminished personal responsibility.

This is saying that sometimes one is responsible and sometimes one isn't. I think that is a reasonable position to hold and different from "Even at Boot Camp" statement which I take is the worst thing the OP could imagine.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Tom Verhoeven wrote:

This is for me an important point - controlling and manipulating someone is just another form of aggression.

Tom

but we do this all the time. our parents did it to us. their parents did it to them. we did it to our children. if your son/daughter said "i don't want to go to school because i don't feel like it!", tell me your next action(s)/word(s) that aren't going to be controlling/manipulating, because i will guarantee the end result would be your kid end up in school, one way or another, against his/her will.

ever since we walked this earth, we have learned to manipulate and control the environment around us, sometimes using direct means, other times, indirect means. the only way that we don't controlling/manipulating one another is when we each live alone on separate planets, even then, we might build rockets to take pot shot at each other. lets us not kid ourselves.

personally, i would like for everyone to be responsible, with the exception of moi!

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Phi Truong wrote:

but we do this all the time. our parents did it to us. their parents did it to them. we did it to our children. if your son/daughter said "i don't want to go to school because i don't feel like it!", tell me your next action(s)/word(s) that aren't going to be controlling/manipulating, because i will guarantee the end result would be your kid end up in school, one way or another, against his/her will.

ever since we walked this earth, we have learned to manipulate and control the environment around us, sometimes using direct means, other times, indirect means. the only way that we don't controlling/manipulating one another is when we each live alone on separate planets, even then, we might build rockets to take pot shot at each other. lets us not kid ourselves.

personally, i would like for everyone to be responsible, with the exception of moi!

You control and manipulate your children? Really?

Human beings as a species tries to control and manipulate the environment, that is obvious. But the costs to our environment, to nature, to our planet and to human lifes are tremendous! Control and manipulation of the environment is just an illusion.

I do not try to control or manipulate others, does not make any difference whether they are children or grown-ups. I would not even consider trying to control my wolf or horse.

The Asian hornet has recently settled here in France - it is killing our honeybees. How do you think we control that? It cannot be done. The hornet is here to stay.

I consider it Aiki to try to live with the environment, with nature, with the animals, with human beings.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

Quote:

Tom Verhoeven wrote:

You control and manipulate your children? Really?

Yes, the opposite is neglect. They don't have to be aware of it, though if they are that isn't a tragedy either. There is a reason we primates nurture our children for many years instead of other animals sending them on their way 20 minutes after birth or hatching.

Re: Even at Boot Camp...no one can reach inside you and make you feel. Your feelings

For some reason we seem to be viewing the words "control" and manipulative" as negative. Certainly they can be, but they are just words used to convey actions with certain intents, that's all. We can all think of examples from either point of view, as we have already seen here, some, I think, equally valid, but they are just words.....the intent matters most. Granted, intent can have its own unintended consequences, but perfection is perhaps, for another thread.